Qualcomm has launched its first major wave of Windows laptops this summer, starting at $999. However, the company is now offering a more affordable option with the introduction of its eight-core Snapdragon X Plus chips. These chips will power new models, such as the Asus Vivobook S 15 and Dell Inspiron 14, both priced at $899. The Asus model is already available at Best Buy.
More Brands Joining In
Other brands like Acer, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung will soon release laptops featuring the Snapdragon X Plus chips. For example, the Acer Swift Go 14 AI will retail at $999, and Samsung plans to introduce a 15-inch Galaxy Book4 Edge in October.
Performance Trade-Offs
While the new Snapdragon X Plus chips share many features with their 10-core and 12-core counterparts, they come with some performance compromises, particularly in graphics. The new eight-core chips have less than half the GPU power, making them less suited for gaming and other graphic-heavy tasks. Despite this, they retain the same 45 TOPS of AI performance, though they do have 12MB less CPU cache.
Benchmarks and Capabilities
Qualcomm’s internal benchmarks suggest that the eight-core chips offer around 80% of the performance of their 12-core counterparts when it comes to CPU power. For productivity tasks, these new chips perform on par with the 10-core models. However, the reduced graphics performance may be noticeable in more visually demanding applications.